Tax cuts promised in the budget may be delayed for six weeks
because Labor, minor parties and independents are planning to block
them in the Senate.

The Government is seeking urgent legal advice on whether the tax
cuts could be backdated from mid-August if they were initially
blocked in the upper house.

Legislation will be introduced today to enact the tax cuts,
which range between $6 a week for those on annual incomes of
between $25,000 and $55,000, and $86.58 a week for those on annual
incomes of $125,000.

The Opposition Leader, Kim Beazley, said yesterday Labor would
vote against the cuts.

"We'll vote against them We're going to say to the
Government - go away, redo them, come back with a package that is
both fair and real reform," he said.

The Democrats, Greens and the independent Meg Lees have said
they would join Labor in opposing the tax cuts in the Senate. This
would mean the Government might have to wait until August 9, the
first scheduled sitting of the Senate with a Coalition majority, to
pass the changes.

Labor's attack on the tax cuts was blunted yesterday when its
Treasury spokesman, Wayne Swan, appeared to contradict Mr Beazley's
firm opposition.

Asked on Melbourne radio whether he would oppose the cuts, Mr
Swan replied: "No, no we're not, we will put forward our direction
on tax reform."

The party has now decided it will offer alternative tax changes,
which Mr Beazley is expected to outline in his reply to the budget
today.

Senior members of the Labor Party were yesterday unaware that
the position had changed from outright opposition.

The decision to oppose the tax cuts drew criticism from some
Labor backbenchers, who said the stance unnecessarily exposed the
Opposition to Government jibes that it opposed tax cuts that will
eventually be passed anyway.

In Parliament, the Prime Minister, John Howard, accused Mr
Beazley of "humbug" and said that only two months ago the
Opposition Leader, in an interview with the Herald, had said
many tradespeople were hit by top tax rates cutting in too
soon.

Mr Howard said Mr Beazley "is actually saying to the battlers of
Australia, 'As far as I am concerned, you can't even have $6 a
week"'.

Blitzing the airwaves to sell the budget yesterday, Mr Howard
and the Treasurer, Peter Costello, both appeared to claim credit
for shaping the budget cuts.

"The Treasurer is responsible for designing tax measures, but
these things can only be introduced when they are approved by the
whole of the government," Mr Costello said.

But Mr Howard was adamant the tax cuts were a joint idea.

"Peter and I in fact had a discussion fully three or four weeks
ago before I went overseas - a general discussion about the likely
position of the budget - and we decided then that there would be
scope for taxation relief and he worked on some proposals and we
had a further discussion last week," Mr Howard told ABC radio.

Senator Lees said it was right for opposition parties "to do
everything we can" to improve the tax cuts, particularly by lifting
the tax-free threshold from $6000 to $12,000. "Some families are
going to be better off by $6000 to $7000, while other families
don't even earn that much," she said.